You are in a parochial school and, I presume, paying tuition. This puts you in the ideal situation for some polite blackmail. (This can also be done with public schools, but it’s harder.) Call around other Catholic or private or even good public schools in your area. Tell them about your child’s math achievement and the lack of stimulation in his present program and ask what programs they would have if you transferred him of course other subjects too). Then take the information you have gathered to the principal of your present school and tell her/him that you will be transferring your son to (name of school) within the next two weeks if he does not get into an *appropriate* program, and you will be advising others to do the same. WARNING: This is to be used with care — a lot of parents have an unrealistic idea of what program is appropriate. However if your son is geting straight A’s by the school’s own evaluation and is not a discipline problem, they have no grounds for their position. Just by calling around and saying your son is not being challenged you have given your present school bad publicity and a blow to their pride. Not pleasant, but at this point they deserve it.If you tell other parents of high-achieving kids that this is not the school for them, the school will lose the students they want and need, and believe me they know it. You may have to go through with your threat and transfer him - but if you do your research properly and find a better program, this may be the best move for him. No, don’t just sit back and let math be a bore and a trial for him!! If his strengths are in math, he may be destined to be an engineer, anfd then yes, he NEEDS algebra and calculus. No good pushing him too fast — that is a grave mistake — but holding him back in the one area where he can succeed is a recipe for frustration and dropping out.: My 10 year old son is in grade 5 in a small parochial Catholic
: school. Last year and this, they put some of the kids in a more
: advanced class. My son was left in the regular class. He has CAPD,
: mostly remdiated and some attention problems related to OCD/tics
: (but no behavior problems). Last year he got As and Bs and made
: honor roll three quarters. Because of his language problems, I did
: Saxon math with him through grade 3, at the end of which he could
: do long division, prime numbers, squares, and square roots. (All
: the math facts have come easly to him.) At that point he was well
: ahead of most of his class and it was apparent to me that math was
: a strength for him. However, he was not put in the advanced math
: in grade 4. I was told this was because he did not test high on
: reading on his Terra Nova standardized test (largely because his
: vocabulary is poor). He won the math award at the end of fourth
: grade for his class (the regular math class), which was based on a
: straight average of math tests throughout the year. There was only
: one other student within any sort of striking distance of him.
: This was good for him, but unfortunately, he didn’t learn anything
: new in the class until April when they took up fractions. Come
: grade 5 he is still in the regular class and it’s a lot of ditch
: digging—endless mutiple digit multiplication problems and like
: last year almost no story problems. He has learned one new
: thing—decimals, but frankly nothing challenging is going on.
: Several kids still don’t really know how to borrow, which he
: mastered in second grade. One kid from the regular class was moved
: to the advanced but it was not my son. The story I keep getting is
: that his reading scores weren’t high enough on the Terra Nova.
: This is bizarre to me. Am I wrong in thinking that this criterion
: would have put many of the greatest mathemeticians in remedial
: math? Is there research to back up the notion that one needs high
: verbal skills to excell in math? I could understand a bit more if
: the math program was very language based like Chicago math, but it
: isn’t. It seems like a case of the rich getting richer and the
: poor getting scraps. The teacher for the advanced math is a a
: professional math teacher; the one for the regular class is the
: art teacher. Basically, he is getting inferior unchallenging math,
: and it seems wrong where this is a strength and being in the
: advanced class would give a much needed boost to his
: self-confidence. Please give me any views on whether I should put
: energies into pursuing getting him into a math class in which he
: would actually learn something or whether research shows my
: intuitive views are off track. (I can no longer supplement with
: Saxon because all his non math homework has become too
: overwhelming.) Thank you.